¬†A Caritas Confederation Emergency Response Support Team has left for Haiti to assist Caritas Haiti in their assessment of needs following the devastation caused by the recent hurricanes. The agency has launched an appeal for funds. This week's hurricane followed quickly on the heels of other powerful hurricanes and tropical storms and is considered the worst to hit the Caribbean in over a decade. According to local Caritas officials, landslides killed more than 1,000 people in Haiti alone, injuring 100,000. Haiti has experienced a plethora of natural and man-made disasters in the past year. In March, the Caritas Confederation appealed for one million US dollars to provide emergency medicine and food to victims of the political violence that overran the country. In May, Caritas Internationalis launched another appeal in response to devastating flooding that killed over a thousand people and destroyed countless towns and villages. This latest appeal following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ivan is an initial response. The funds will provide food and non-food relief items, such as kitchen utensils, sleeping bags, tents, medicine, chlorine, and clean drinking water to 2,000 families in three different parts of the country. The hardest hit region is the city of GonaÔves and the surrounding area, which was entirely inundated by floods caused by the hurricane. The damage was catastrophic for residents, all of whose homes and buildings were flooded, some beyond repair. The local Caritas office was severely effected. Soil conservation work, undertaken after previous storms, was completely washed away. Preliminary assessments show that more than 60 percent of the damage inflicted on Haiti by the hurricane occurred in the region of GonaÔves. In that city alone, there are 150,000 people effected, with more than 1,000 still missing. Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic agencies which include CAFOD, SCIAF and Trocaire